Fraser Institute study reveals “massive” cash grab: Where does it all go?

A new Fraser Institute study shows that the average Canadian family pays 42.5 per cent in taxes, including all types, demonstrating how much the government has been whittling away at our paycheques over the last 55 years.

You can check out the full stunning report on their website for the detailed calculations, but what are the high level findings of the report?

They found that the index has increased by 2006 per cent and the average Canadian family making just over $83,000 per year is paying over $35,000 in taxes.

We’re not going back to it because it’s completely unnecessary. Currency is a means of exchange, it was originally developed to simplify barter (your neighbour wants to buy some tomatoes from you, but all he can trade is chickens, but you don’t need chickens. You want some fuel for your stove. Currency allows you to trade with him regardless. The only reason it’s commodity based is to prevent your scrip from being forged, but promissory notes redeemable for some commodity don’t have this benefit whether or not they’re actually redeemable or just have implicit value)

Thought experiment: the world’s’ gold supply isn’t increasing by 5% a year, as the global economy is (driven by industrialization in countries such as China and India, which represent very real increases in global economic output). Actual mining of 3000t/a is about 1.5% of total above-ground supply. How do you adjust for rapid economic growth in that case?

The answer is … as any individual Canadians’ relative contribution to the global economy decreases, so does their share of the global commodity standing in for that contribution. In essence, instead of being paid 50oz of gold, your pay next year will decline by that 3.5% difference to about 48. This is deflationary, and deflation is in general a bad idea because it inhibits trade. There’s no incentive to invest in economically productive endeavours if your gold just sits there gaining value because someone else is bidding it up. That’s basically what happened to Vancouver’s real estate.

Gold is volatile relative to other commodities as well, precious and base metals. The price of iron is probably more meaningful since it’s economically useful, and plentiful enough that normal supply and demand applies. It’s also volatile relative to housing – a house a hundred years ago was worth about 100 oz of gold (2000 dollars) while today, that same house is worth about 600 (800k – the Canadian average. In Toronto or Vancouver it would be much higher).

There isn’t enough gold in government vaults to back the currency supply at current prices -that’s why the gold bugs are always insisting gold’s real value is 10k+ per ounce. That’s what it would have to be to back the actual currency supply. If anything this indicates that fiat has inflated less than gold would predict, since the cash is so undervalued relative to it. It’s also why the gold standard is never coming back – that sort of sharp devaluation would be catastrophic to the economy.

Correction;
What I wrote:
“100 years ago you could buy a Colt SA pistol in .45 for about $20.00.
Today that same Colt will cost you about $800.00!”
It should be $1800.00 for a new one. Oops.

Gold is not volatile…debt-backed paper money, precious metal speculators and government interventions (Wilson, Roosevelt, Nixon, etc.) are the problem.
100 years ago you could buy a nice house for 1,000, $20.00 gold coins.
Today you can buy that same nice house for those same 1,000. $20.00 gold coins!
More or less…
And where’s all the gold that was in Ft Knox…oh right, they’re not talking about that.

If you’re being bitten by inflation then you need to reconsider your strategy. More or less, don’t hold cash for long enough for it to eat away at it. Buy assets that grow with the economy. Big Bank shares have returned over 10%, far ahead of inflation, for decades. This is because they grow with nominal GDP, which factors in inflation, as well as population and productivity growth, and give you back 4% in their profits from economic activity on top of that.

Even in the “gold backed” currency era, debasement (ie, inflation) was a problem, and you’re tying your currency to a very volatile commodity which would make certain issues worse (our economy is so large now that backing it with gold is practically impossible). Currency was never meant to be a store of value, rather a means of exchange. Your gun is worth about the same as it was 100 year ago, relative to other assets (1 oz of gold, vs half an ounce today, some of the difference is commodity fluctuations, some is productivity growth) even if the number of dollars either is worth has changed dramatically. Don’t hold cash for long term.

100 years ago you could buy a Colt SA pistol in .45 for about $20.00.
Today that same Colt will cost you about $800.00!
This is the result of ‘inflation’.
The international banking cartel – represented in Canada by the private corporation called The Bank of Canada, or in America as The Federal Reserve, Bank of England, Bank of France, etc. – is responsible for inflation. It’s how they ‘get’ their massive wealth.
For example, every time the BoC prints a dollar – under the fiat issue currency system – or paper money based on debt – it devalues the preexisting dollars, makes them have less buying power (things don’t get more expensive, their intrinsic value doesn’t really change. See gold or the Colt example above). A global financial collapse is inevitable when there is zero value to the dollar…
30% of your paycheck is gone before you even earn it, though inflation!
The 1%ers – the extremely wealthy and powerful internationalists – steal all that money for themselves in the printing process and you, us, we get screwed…and they’re also building large central governments with our money, in order to take the rest of our wealth and all of our rights!

Economics is not rocket science – they just want you to think it is so you don’t challenge their BS! These three books are a great primer for understand the bigger picture, use the bibliographies:
– “Economics in One Lesson” – Henry Hazlitt
– “What Has Government Done to Our Money?” (or anything else by him) – Murray N. Rothbard
– “The Creature from Jekyll Island” – G. Edward Griffin

Poor Jay Kelly, is the welfare system not giving you enough?
Many Canadian households, including mine, pay an exorbitant amount of taxes. The favourite Liberal pass time is to waste my money and give it away to foreign entities; look into the foreign spending you lazy sod . One example – Trudeau gave 20 million to a foundation that is being investigated by the FBI – The Clinton’s are thieves.

They have to go back to 1961 because that’s the only way the numbers work, and even that’s mostly because of the social programs rolled out in that decade. In the last 20 years, the ratio has actually improved.

If you read the report it shows that Canadian’s tax burden is at the lowest level in 40 years (with the exception of a few years in the early 90s). The headline is misleading and should be “Canadians enjoying lowest taxes as percentage of income in last 40 years”. (see page 8 of the report)

While I agree with reducing government waste, if we are going to have an intelligent conversation on the optimal amount of taxation (looking at the cost/benefits of taxes and the services they provide) we need to see beyond these kind of biased articles and headlines (that comes from both sides of the political spectrum).